Eden in Essex, a Town Garden

by Mary Jasch

From the street, a low rock wall that Dee Dee Charnok built, edged in heuchera and allium, separates the gravel yard from the sidewalk. Balls of Buxus sempervirens zig-zag under Heritage birch, 16 to a bed. Two urns of burgundy heuchera adorn the stone slab steps of the 1803 Rubin Buckingham house in Essex, Connecticut.

Charnok bought her historic home two and a half years ago. Although the garden's footprint had been established, it was neglected with overgrown bittersweet tangled in trees and shrubs. “The garden was abandoned," she says. So Charnok, swimming pool designer by trade and gardener for 45 years by passion, got to work.

She framed the one-acre in-town property with white fencing for a sense of privacy, leaving some area unfenced “so it doesn't look like a playpen," she says of the rectangular landscape accented by large maple and black walnut trees.

Charnok doesn't go for lots of color but instead prefers the subtleties of foliage and stem. Texture and form are the bases. Her garden is a study in chartreuse, creamy yellow, and white, and shades of burgundy and green.

Shrub and flower borders and a geometric central axis of planted and hard components compose this garden-yard (yarden -- jardin?). From inside the house, the Charnoks can look straight down the central axis of their garden through the spreading limbs of saucer magnolia, rectangular swimming pool, twin boxwood topiaries and sculpture, a veggie garden anchored by Mr. Charnok's wooden sculptures, and beyond to a perennial border along the fence.

“Boxwood is used around the property so it ties it all in together."ť - Dee Dee Charnok

To the left of the house, a linear island of pachysandra provides evergreen texture as opposed to a lawn. Left of that, a verdant border consists of Charnok's favorite unusuals: white Jack-in-the-Pulpit, white trillium, hostas grouped with wild onion, Japanese painted fern with Rosa glauca, the fragrant 'Miss Kim,' French lilac, 'Ghost,' white hosta, spidery Amsonia, mini mock orange, and lots of hosta, box, and viburnum.

Along the back fence, Charnok plans to relocate an invasive plume poppy. It needs to have its own place, she says. The fun continues down the right side of the yard - dark Sambucus, star magnolia, tall salvia, natives highbush blueberry and Joe Pye. Close to the house no white fence exists, for Charnok will plant large shrubs which take a while to grow. Interesting pairings continue - Diablo ninebark and white redbud, 'Jack Frost' forget-me-not, variegated willow in cement pots. The only garden of colorful flowers is near the house - red and pink weigela, New Dawn rose, fathergilla. Celeriac surprises with big-balled allium, chartreuse nicotiana, and angelica and tall euphorbia that looks like its wild relative.

Potted plants are spectacular - bay leaf, wintered in the basement and watered just once a month with almost no light, and tons of succulents in homemade hyper-tufa pots that Charnok covers with a boat canvas in winter.

Then, take a peek by the garage. A garden of English boxwood and B. sempervirens and other shrubs are decorated with an Alberta spruce topiary in a metal urn, strawberries, and a blue pot of succulents. Whew!

“My husband and I take care of the whole garden," Charnok says. About three hours a day. Each. “If you really pay attention and edge and mulch really well, in August and September you don't do much in the garden except routine maintenance. If you get in the garden in March when you want to invest in it, you can save yourself a lot of time. Keeping the garden well-edged is key to keeping weeds out, then just once a month, whip it to keep weeds down."

The Charnok property is packed with plants but its beauty lies in a symphonic blending of texture, form, and grace.

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